


These Things Move In Threes

by pigeonstatueconundrum



Series: These Things Move In Threes 'Verse [1]
Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Anthology, Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Asexual Charlie Kelly, Canon typical alcohol use, Canon typical drug use, High School, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, aromantic Dennis Reynolds, canon typical sexism, positive rat imagery, stupid pining trash babies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-18 01:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3550583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonstatueconundrum/pseuds/pigeonstatueconundrum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>CHAPTER 3 now up</p><p>Anthology of short stories exploring the relationship between Dennis Reynolds, Ronald "Mac" McDonald and Charlie Kelly throughout their shared and fucked up history. I can't promise any regular updates, I'll add to this as the mood/inspiration strikes. Hope you you enjoy, comment if you would like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. But at least the ceiling's very pretty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dennis isn't Charlie’s friend, not really.
> 
> Dennis is Ronnie’s friend.
> 
> But that’s not true either.
> 
> Dennis is Mac’s friend.

**But at least the ceiling's very pretty**

 

Dennis isn’t Charlie’s friend, not really. Dennis has a nice house, can wear different clothes to school each day and a loud twin sister. Dennis has money. He uses it to buy weed off him and Ronnie and not to get Charlie to eat insulation foam or cigarette butts. It makes Dennis better than most.

 

Dennis is Ronnie’s friend.

 

But that’s not true either.

 

Dennis is _Mac’s_ friend.     

 

Charlie isn’t sure about Mac yet. Ronnie was the one who had thrown rocks at trains with him last Christmas. Ronnie was the one who sometimes slept wrapped safely around Charlie like rats in a nest. Ronnie was the one who had shared his answers for every piece of class work, homework and exams since first grade. Ronnie is not Mac, because Mac doesn’t want to be Ronnie. Charlie thinks Mac wants Dennis.

 

They’d been huffing spray paint that Ronnie had stolen from the janitor’s closet. They’d been under the bleachers since morning registration. Charlie couldn’t face English class today. Mr Hoyle’s handwriting was small and mean. It flowed together tight and hateful on the board and Charlie didn’t want to feel like that. So he huffed spray paint under bleachers until that tight mean ball in his chest unwound. He watched Ronnie attempt push ups, the uneven rhythm and breathing tugging at a thread of that tight mean ball.

 

Everything is warm and close.

 

Dennis is talking to Adriano Calvanese above them. Charlie became slowly aware of it as Ronnie stopped his body’s jagged beat to lie on his back. Ronnie’s face is bathed with golden sunlight as he looks through the seats above, towards Dennis’ voice.

 

Adriano is talking. Charlie automatically looks around for something impressive he could ingest or inhale.  There’s half a used tube of hand sanitizer, abandoned a couple of arm lengths away. That could work. Charlie remembered how Poppins had once eaten a whole tube of Ronnie’s Dads toothpaste. Two days later Poppins had come home. The dog had been fine, although his breath had stunk like rancid peppermint for weeks.

 

Charlie’s attention snagged as he heard his name in tandem with Ronnie’s. He joins Ronnie, lying on his back to look up at the feet of the boys above them.

 

“You must be looking for Dirtgrub and the Rat? It nearly one,They’re probably passed out somewhere.”

“It’s none of your business what I’m doing.” Dennis replies, proud.  

 

Ronnie closes his eyes, lazily under the influence of paint fumes and golden light.

 

Ronnie had taken Charlie into a church five or six years ago. The quiet had hurt his head, the smell had hurt his nose, and the people there had hurt his feelings. Charlie had to sit on the hard wooden bench, his legs to short to touch the polished floor. Ronnie had gone into the little wooden wardrobe with the priest. It had reminded Charlie of the library his mum had taken him to, just that one time. Objects on high shelves and people that knew you weren’t worthy without even talking to you.   But unlike the library, Charlie couldn’t break a window or bite someone because this was for Ronnie. Charlie had promised.

 

So he sits quietly, the way adults mean when they say ‘quiet as a mouse’. Because he had promised.

 

He pretended not to notice the old ladies with their tight mean voices. Because he had promised.

 

He pretends not to notice that Ronnie has been crying. Because he had promised.

 

They sit together on the hard wooden bench. Ronnie is looking straight ahead at the big window at the front, the one with all the angels surrounding the man on the big chair. They remind Charlie of the nest of rats that had lived in the basement. They were all shiny and wrapped up cosy together. Charlie thinks it would be nice to have a big nest like that. Ronnie is looking at the window like he too would like to be part of that big nest. The sun is shining through the window, bathing Ronnie’s face with golden sunlight. His face is turned towards the light, like the angels turned towards the man in the chair, like the rats turned towards their brothers, like he looks right now turned towards Dennis’ voice under the bleachers.

 

Ronnie stretches his neck up towards the light and the voices above. Charlie tunes back in to the conversation in time to hear Dennis say,

“Why would I care where Dirtgrub and Ronnie the Rat are? I have so much better things to do.”

 

Charlie glances over to look at Ronnie. But Ronnie isn’t Ronnie anymore. Ronnie is ten years old again and sitting on the hard wooden church bench looking at the window. But this time the man in the big chair has gone and the other rats in the nest have fled. Ronnie doesn’t want to be Ronnie anymore.

 

It is after school and Ronnie has followed Charlie back to his. They are passing the bottle of vodka between them as the sun sets through the bedroom window. Their own private holy communion.

 

Ronnie hasn’t said a word since the bleachers.  

 

The sky is the colour of an old bruise, one that has festered for a long time, hidden under long sleeves and teenage bluster.

 

“Hey Ronnie…”

“Don’t call me that.”

 Charlie looks up, “Why not?”

 

Ronnie picks at the loose thread in his jeans. Outside the sky darkens. Inside Charlie holds his breath.

 

“I just… It’s a fucking stupid name okay.”

Charlie nods. He wonders if he passed the tight mean ball in his chest to Ronnie like the ringworm.

 

Ronnie takes his last breath and says, “I want to be Mac.”

 

Mac holds his breath waiting for Charlie’s response.

 

Charlie looks at Mac and nods. “Okay. Hey Mac.”

 

“Yeah Dude.”

 

“Do you ever, like, wish you were a rat?”

 

“Fuck. How high are you? I told you not to drink that hand sanitizer.”

 

When Charlie had looked at Ronnie he saw the boy who shared his Christmas, his sleeping space, and his protection. When Charlie looks at Mac he sees the boy under the bleachers his faced towards a god who had so much better things to do.  

 

 

[But at least the ceiling's very pretty - writing mix](http://8tracks.com/pigeonstatueconundrum/my-brothers-they-never-went-blind-for-what-they-did)


	2. They always said that sex would change you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie doesn’t get sex in the same way Dennis doesn’t get love.
> 
> Mac has enough misconceptions about both for the three of them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this fic Charlie is asexual and Dennis is Aromantic. Comments are much appreciated.

Charlie doesn’t get sex the same way Dennis doesn’t get love.

Mac has enough misconceptions about both for the three of them

Dennis isn’t ‘one of the gang’ but he’s close. Dennis hangs out with Mac and Charlie under the bleachers more often then he doesn’t, proud and so very much doing them a favour by being there. Dennis steals pills from his mum and fancy liquor from his dad to share on a park bench when they get thrown out of the movie theatre. Dennis sits with Charlie and Mac, staring with matching red rimmed eyes, pupils blown as they watch the rising sun. 

Dennis isn’t a friend but he’s close. He’s maybe an acquaintance. Charlie isn’t sure of that word. Charlie isn’t sure of a lot of words but that one has the feel of a too large coat that will not fit. Acquaintances are for people who can live life at the normal pace. The sorts of people who the phrase ‘hanging out’ doesn’t mean ending the night running across the local impound lot with stolen fireworks and pound of ketamine hidden in a porcelain poodle. 

Dennis is Dennis. An enigma, wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in delusions of grandeur. 

They are in Mac’s room with a crate of beer on the floor between them. Charlie had pulled all the covers and blankets from Mac’s bed and had wrapped himself up in them. 

His mind retreats to the memory of being five. He’d found the nest of rats in the basement. The babies looked like big jelly beans, the pink ones. Charlie likes Jelly beans. Mum had always bought them on the good days. The days she had smiled and there was steak for dinner. 

Not like now. Not the sad days where mum is cleaning everything. Not the days where the lights switch on an off, on and off, on and off. Not the days when the rule of three only seems to be the only thing keeping Charlie alive.

The rats were in a broken box by the water pipes. Charlie remembered how they had looked so happy nested in the old curtains. All cuddled up to their brothers.

Charlie pulls Mac’s blankets closer around him. He will be safe like the rats.

Mac has stolen Luther’s porn magazines. He is showing them to Dennis.

Charlie will be safe in the blankets. He will be safe. He will be safe.

Dennis is looking through the porn magazines. Dennis has a boner. 

“Dude, are you hard right now?” Mac is fascinated with this proof of Dennis’ virility. 

Dennis moves a knee to further corroborate his heterosexuality. Mac’s admiration makes him glow golden in the setting sun. “She’s a sexy piece. What can I say; your dad has great taste, Mac.”

Mac grins proudly. He has as much right to the complement as he did the magazines. 

But, Charlie will be safe in the blankets.

Sexy. Mac had explained sexy to Charlie. 

They’d been under the bleachers. Coach was making them run laps and to avoid the humiliation the Mcpoyle’s were currently facing, Mac and Charlie had hidden until the time was up. Mac had been watching Christine Keele run, with as much enjoyment as a tour guide showing tourist round Independence Hall for the hundredth time. The convention for appreciation must be observed, outwardly enjoyed and inwardly disconnected. 

Mac had made a comment. One of many interchangeable phrases. Charlie copies them of Mac, Mac had copied them from his dad. Charlie wonders how long the chain of stolen interchangeable phrases stretched back. 

“I don’t see it dude.” Charlie had said.

“She’s just sexy Charlie there isn’t anything too get.” Mac had replied.

“You call all women sexy. The word doesn’t mean anything anymore” 

“What are you saying?”

Sexy. 

Charlie isn’t sure of a lot of words but that one has the feel of a fragile porcelain poodle that is clumsy in Mac and Charlie’s adolescent hands. They don’t know how to hold without dropping and spilling the stolen ketamine everywhere. 

Knowing how to talk to someone is important friend skill.

Knowing what not to talk about is more important.

Charlie is on dangerous ground. The junkyard dogs are circling and he’s already lost a shoe.

“I dunno Mac.” Charlie muttered. He pulls his jacket closer. “I just don’t think she’s attractive.”

“Are you gay?” 

Charlie looked incredulously at Mac, “No Mac. I am not gay.”

“Because it’s alright if you are.” Mac carried on with a single minded zeal. “Well no it isn’t. But you can, like, confess and stuff. Or I could do it for you. I confess stuff for you all the time.”

“I’m not gay, Mac. Jesus.”

“Okay, okay. I thought you liked whats-her-face though.”

“Yeah but that’s different.” Charlie explained. “I want to build a nest with her.”

“A nest?”

“Yeah.” 

“Dude, that’s not normal. I feel you should know that.” 

Charlie shrugged, smiling at the thought of the two of them curled up together, happily nested in old curtains. “What we have is pure. Just because I don’t want to fuck her doesn’t mean I don’t love her.”

“That makes no sense,” Mac replied already bored of the conversation. Already chalking it up to another of Charlie’s many personality quirks. 

Mac had explained sexy to Charlie. He had not done a very good job. But not as badly as the person who must have explained sexy to Mac.

They are in Dennis’ room with a crate of beer on the floor between them.

They have the house to themselves. Both Reynolds parents are out, and Dee is at play rehearsals. Dennis had given them a tour of the house, pausing the longest in his twin’s room. The ‘Keep out’ sign ignored in favour of unravelling the feminine mystique. Or at least unravelling were Dee kept her booze.

Mac has stolen Dee’s romance novel. He is showing it to Charlie.

They are reading parts aloud.

Dennis is quiet.

He doesn’t pay attention to Mac’s particularly spirited rendition of the stable boys proposal speech. Shrugging he says.

“I just don’t see the appeal.”

“Girls love this shit.” Mac replied, throwing himself onto the bed next to Dennis. 

“It’s all flowery declarations, soul mates and hearts and true loves kiss and stuff.” He adds, now the foremost authority. 

“What’s the point to it?” Dennis muttered, playing with the edge of the bedspread, “why would anyone want something like that.”

“I dunno. It’s being close to another person, or something” Mac turns his face away from Dennis, his eyes distant. “I don’t care, this is girl shit Den.”

“That’s what sex is for.” Dennis replied.

“Yeah!” Mac reached out for a high five.

Mac’s eyes are still distant though. 

Mac had explained romance to Dennis. He had not done a very good job. But not as badly as the person who must have explained romance to Mac.

It is hours later. Mac has passed out after his 5 beer and spliff.

Charlie is wrapped in a blanket.

Dennis is playing with the edge of the bedspread, the book open on his lap.

Knowing how to talk to someone is important friend skill.

Knowing what not to talk about is more important.

That part of friendship Charlie can do. 

“I don’t get sex.”

Dennis looks up, “Yeah?”

“Yeah, I don’t need it or whatever. I tried once with Stacy Corvelli but it sucked, you know.”

“Not really. I love sex.”

“I know.”

Dennis pauses and closes the book. 

“I don’t get relationships.”

“Yeah. I noticed.”  
“I mean why bother with it all.” Dennis watches Mac as the other boy starts to drool all over himself. “I’ve got things sweet as they are.”

“No I get it.” Charlie agrees. “We are all both pretty cool like that.”

Mac snores.

“Except for Mac.” Charlie adds, “He is a like, a total mess.”

“I hear that.” Dennis agrees.

He hands Charlie another beer as the sun finally sets. 

So Dennis isn’t a friend but he’s close. Charlie’ll be glad the day he gets there.

Because Dennis doesn’t get love the same way Charlie doesn’t get sex.  
And sometimes it’s nice to have someone to not talk to about things with.


	3. Nothing is crueller than children who come from good homes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They bought a bar. 
> 
> They had bought a bar. 
> 
> It had taken more cash than Charlie had ever seen before, bribery, begging and, when those methods had spectacularly failed, a fake ghost haunting. But they had bought a bar.

 

They bought a bar.

 

They had bought a _bar_.

 

It had taken more cash than Charlie had ever seen before, bribery, begging and, when those methods had spectacularly failed, a fake ghost haunting. But they had bought a bar.

 

Mac, Dennis and Charlie were the proud owners of Patricks Pub, (The name was up for debate).

 

They had owned the bar for an hour.

 

“I can’t believe we bought a bar.”

 

“Me neither dude.” Mac grins down at Charlie where he’s lying across the bar. He sits up unsteadily to trying to take a sip of bear. Most of it ends down the front of his T-shirt.

 

Dennis comes up from the basement, staggering under the weight of a keg. “Jesus these things are heavy. I am not doing the heavy lifting when this place is up and running”

 

He dumps the keg onto the bar, making space by pushing Mac with a proprietary hand on his hip.

“There was a least three rats down there Charlie? How many did you release?”

 

“How are you supposed to have a haunting without rats? That’s like, haunting 101, come on.” Charlie snorted, getting unsteadily to his feet to help set up the keg.

 

Everything is loose and warm.

 

The sun is setting of the window of the bar that _they had bought_. They had gotten the jukebox ( _in the bar they had bought_ ) to work, although it only had Hammond organ music and Bill Haley & His Comets on it.

 

After three repeats of Rock Around the Clock, Mac had shut it off with a foot through the front.

 

They had owned the bar for four hours.

 

That tight mean ball isn’t like a spider for once. It’s a ball of wool. All soft and playful. The type of ball of wool a kitten on a pair of curtains would play with. Charlie’s mum had had a pair of curtains like that. Or she had. Last time he’d visited she’d been cleaning a lot more. Now he’d moved out the placed looked so different. The house had seemed smaller. That couldn’t be right. Because the only thing that had changed was Charlie had left.

 

He had never taken that much space in that house for it to be missed when he was gone.

 

Charlie had liked those curtains. Maybe the kittens had left the house the same time he did.

 

“We should get a cat for the bar.”

 

“Charlie, we are not getting a cat for the bar.”

 

“But it would get rid of the rats, and it could be a mascot and it could wear a little jacket and we could train it to like collect tips and stuff and….”

 

“We are not getting a cat dude.” Mac interrupts, sliding to floor to sit next to Charlie.

 

“Fine.” Charlie sighed. “I don’t think a few rats won’t cause any problems anyway.”

 

“Oh Sure,” Dennis hands them two beers, “Because nothing says trendy upmarket bar like rodents running about.”

 

They sit on the floor and watch the sun set. It’s beautiful through the frame of neon and grime. Charlie never wants to leave. 

 

“I can’t believe we bought a bar.”

 

“You already said that.” Dennis says. But he’s grinning too. “But seriously guys. We cannot tell Dee about this place.”

 

“Going to be a bit hard to hide a whole bar from her bro.” Mac points out, stretching up for a refill.

 

“Yeah, but I don’t want her sticking her nose in.”

 

Charlie passed his glass to Mac, “Why?”

 

“Don’t you remember that Christmas?” Mac answers. “A couple of years ago where she made us spend the day with her. And got us to break into her crazy exes apartment.”

 

“Oh yeah. Didn’t we end up in hospital coz you fell off his the balcony.”

 

“I didn’t fall.” Mac corrected, “I did a sweet backflip and landed badly because of that stupid garbage can.  It was your sister’s fault Dennis. She was supposed to be look out. “

 

“Why were you even there in the first place?” Dennis asked.

 

“She said she’d rat us out for breaking into your house.” Mac shrugged “We knew you were in Vermont. We assumed everyone else would be too. How were we to know she’d gotten chucked out of lumberjack camp.”

 

“I think it was charm school.”

 

“Whatever.”

 

Charlie remembered that Christmas.

 

It’d been the first year Dennis had been away at college. It had been a strange year. The part of Dennis Reynolds had been played a bleeping pager and phone conversations, with the muffled sound of other people’s revelry as the soundtrack.

 

Those days, Mac had seemed smaller.

 

There was no disappearance of curtains or a marked frequency to the smell of floor polish and bleach to mark it though.

 

There were fingers stained with nicotine as Mac rolled cigarettes after cigarette, standing in the freezing cold waiting for the only working pay phone in Philly to ring.

There were the symphonies of shrieking hookers and wheezing octogenarians, as they sat in the free clinic with Mac’s broken hand in a bag of rapidly thawing peas.

There was the smell of incense and salt water as Mac left the confessional, red rimmed eyes cast down from the big window. 

(The one with all the angels surrounding the man on the big chair. The one that reminds Charlie of rats nests for some reason he can’t recall.)

 

They’d stolen fireworks and fancy microbrew in anticipation for the day Dennis came home. They had learnt the truth about Santa a long time ago. But the tradition of leaving offerings for the returning childhood friend seemed engrained. Some traditions are sacred after all.

 

Dennis did not come home.

 

Dennis had gone skiing with his family in Vermont. He’d sent them a post card. It had someone else’s family baring their teeth in glee as they hurtled towards the bottom of a mountain.

 

Charlie had never seen a mountain.

 

They passed out on Christmas Eve in a Wendys parking lot, A blanket and bottle of Jack between them. Mac is cuddling against him on the backseat of his dad’s car. They wake up on Christmas Day and Santa has not been. Neither has Dennis.

 

Charlie claimed he was too hungover, too annoyed and too apathetic to object when Mac suggested they break into the Reynolds house. Perhaps Mac would be less small at Dennis’.  And at any rate the Reynolds house would be warm and would not smell of cleaning products like his or eggnog like Mac’s. 

 

Uncle Jack was staying at Charlie’s.

 

So they went to the Reynolds house. They’d broken in there so many times with no trouble that the girl with the golf club had been a surprise. Charlie remembers that despite his hungover state he’d found the screaming girl fascinating.

 

He’s never seen Dee Reynolds up close in her natural habitat before. She’d been in her Pyjamas, hair and makeup like the war paint of a lacklustre Amazonian.

 

He’d seen on the news about a Swan that had broken a kids arm once. Dee was that Swan. All angry and un-coordinated. Throwing out anything, slipshod insults and sloppy barbs in the hope something will stick that she’ll make an impression.

 

Because she is alone in this house and the only human contact she has on Christmas Day would rather see the ghost of her brother than her.

 

Charlie finds the screaming girl fascinating.

 

Mac wanted to see Dennis.

 

Dee wanted to see Dennis.

 

They got a trip to the hospital instead. Neither got what they wanted for Christmas.

 

 

They had owned the bar for twenty hours.

 

Charlie awakens with Mac cuddled against his back. A blanket thrown over them and a bottle of whisky by their elbow. Dennis is asleep on the bar, his arm dangling towards his fellow investors.

 

Charlie twists to find a more comfortable position. Mac is holding on pretty tight. In the end he gives up and settles back to sleep.

 

Dennis snorts in slumber.

 

Mac twitches at the sound. No doubt dreaming of that tomorrow in which he longer seems smaller.   

 

The sun is glaring through the bar window. The inevitability of another day painted in neon and grime. 

 

They bought a _bar_.

 

Charlie grins as he settles down to sleep in Mac’s embrace. Some traditions are sacred after all

 

 

[ **Nothing is crueler than children who come from good homes - writing mix** ](http://8tracks.com/pigeonstatueconundrum/nothing-is-crueler-than-children-who-come-from-good-homes)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not mean to write this. I just made a playlist about Mac and Charlie as kids and i wrote this in about 4 hours. It is also a Christmas fic, sorry about that. I have no idea how that happened.
> 
> comments/feedback honestly make my day
> 
> as always I'm here http://pigeonstatueconundrum.tumblr.com/ if you want to chat or keep up to date with the latest fic stuff.
> 
> xxxx pigeon

**Author's Note:**

> come follow me at pigeonstatueconundrum.tumblr.com for updates and more incoherent ramblings on my favorite stupid trash babies


End file.
